


Carry Me Home (Tonight)

by stories_of_blue_and_gold



Category: Riverdale (TV 2017), bughead - Fandom
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, F/M, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Genderswap, Role Reversal, Slow Burn, Spin the Bottle, bughead - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-01
Updated: 2017-11-08
Packaged: 2019-01-27 18:51:56
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 17,060
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12588344
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stories_of_blue_and_gold/pseuds/stories_of_blue_and_gold
Summary: Betty Cooper is weird. She's a weirdo. She doesn't fit in and she doesn't want to fit in. Her best (and only) two friends, Veronica Lodge and Jughead Jones drag her out to Homecoming so they can fully enjoy their senior year together and Betty doesn't know what's worse - watching Jughead pine after Veronica as she chases after the new kid, Archie, or that they somehow all end up at Thornhill Manor with the Blossom Twins.When Betty refuses to play Spin the Bottle according to the Blossom rules, she and Jughead are forced into a closet until she complies. But compliance requires facing her feelings for Jughead, and Betty refuses to do that, even if she has to spend the whole night trapped with him in a coat closet.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> A re-imagining inspired by Lili Reinhart's desire to play a female version of Jughead. Here the roles of Jughead and Betty are swapped and for continuity purposes, Veronica and Archie's roles are also flip flopped. Jason's murder never happened. This was supposed to be a one shot, but enjoyed an angry and rebellious outsider Betty so much that it grew into a nice multi-chapter.
> 
> I blog on tumblr under the same name so come find me there!

Cheryl Blossom brought a bottle to her cherry red lips and downed the rest of the bitter wine in one fluid motion. She smacked her lips loudly and declared to the party, “I have a fun idea.”

Meanwhile, Betty Cooper was pulling at the hem of her second-hand dress and trying to be invisible. She normally didn’t attend dances, or - as a rule - their after parties at Thornhill Manor thrown by the infamous Blossom twins. Her lifelong best friend, Veronica Lodge had sworn a blood oath to her that she would never leave her side, she’d allow her to change shoes after the dance, and that they would head home no later than midnight. Betty curled her toes with relish inside her worn-in sneakers, thankful that Vee followed through on at least one of her three promises. 

The other two were forgotten the minute that Archie Andrews turned his dazzling smile on her. 

The party in Cheryl’s basement had dwindled down to just a dozen or so classmates the later it got. They lounged around in various post-party states, depending on how much they’d had to drink. Betty scrolled lazily on her phone, curled up in the corner of a leather sofa. The only reason they were still there, she suspected, was because Veronica was still deciding whether or not she was going home with Archie. 

“C’mon Cheryl,” Veronica said from her perch in Archie’s lap. “What are we, in middle school again?”

Archie looked at everyone around him sharing playful, knowing glances. Despite having been immediately adopted into Jason and Cheryl’s weird redheaded cult at his arrival in town that year, he was still getting used to some of the eccentricities that everyone else had grown up with. “What?” he asked. “What is it?” 

Jughead slumped down in his seat next to Betty and ran a hand through his thick, dark hair. “Spin the Bottle,” he said, eyes set firmly forward to avoid the canoodling couple. “Blossom rules,” he added.  

He took a long drink from his solo cup and then looked at Betty. They shared an eye roll that made Betty’s heart swell.

_ Stop that _ , Betty scolded herself. She’d gotten through most of the night, for once, without actively pining after her totally uninterested friend. She wasn’t about to ruin it now. 

Cheryl tossed her long locks over her shoulder and stepped slowly around the coffee table. The sound of her heels rang ominously on the hardwood. Her eyes gleamed with a sense of mischief as she explained. “If the bottle points to you once, you kiss. Twice, you french. Three times and it’s seven minutes in the closet. If you want to skip, you lose an item of clothing. You can pass off a make out to someone else by frenching them, but no double passes. Break the rules and you’re confined until you comply.”

“Sounds like the rules of a well-organized orgie,” Betty said under her breath and Jughead choked on his drink.

“And of course,” Cheryl said, loudly finishing her speech. Her eyes flashed to Betty and Betty sunk further into her corner of the couch. “Hostess gets first pick.”  

Cheryl placed the now empty bottle on its side in the center of the coffee table.  “First spin goes to…” she trailed off, gaze still glued to Betty, and flicked the bottle so it started spinning. 

Betty closed her eyes, and anxiously pulled at the worn neckline of her dress as if she could pull it up over her head and hide away in it. Nothing good was going to follow anything Cheryl said next.

“Betty Cooper.”

Betty’s eyes popped open. She felt the blush burning like a rash up her neck. She watched the bottle spin like it was in slow motion.  _ Land anywhere _ , she urged.  _ Anywhere but him. _

The tip of the bottle slowed and passed Chuck, then Kevin, then Cheryl, then Jason, then Veronica and Archie and finally landed firmly on Jughead. 

Betty’s stomach dropped.  _ No, no, no, _ she thought.  _ No I am not doing this again.  _ She risked a look at Jughead. He stared at Cheryl, stone faced and unamused. It made her heart fall further down into her gut. He didn’t have to look so unhappy about it, did he?

“C’mon Cheryl,” Veronica warned. “She didn’t even say she was playing.”

“What’s the matter? Is Wednesday Addams afraid she’s going to catch feelings if she participates in a game?” Cheryl teased, and folded her arms. “Or is she just confused by whether she’d rather kiss Jughead or someone with a little more curve to their swerve?” She gave a pointed look to Veronica. 

“You can’t force her to play, Cheryl,” Jughead objected. “We’ll just skip her and I’ll start instead.” He reached out and re-spun the bottle. 

Betty stood up abruptly. She could hear the bottle spinning but refused to watch who it landed on. 

“No way!” Cheryl shouted. “She can’t pass without payment. Either that dress comes off or she plants one on Jones.”

Veronica rolled her eyes. “Knock it off, Cheryl.”

Archie grabbed Betty’s arm as she tried to pass him. “Just a quick kiss Betty, who cares?”

She yanked her arm away from him. “Thanks for the advice, Red. I think I’ll just head home. Great party.” 

“Careful Cooper,” Cheryl warned. “You’re risking a compliance penalty.” 

Betty stopped in her tracks and slowly turned back to Cheryl. “What are you going to do?” she challenged. “Make me?”

The minute the words left her mouth, Betty knew they’d been a mistake. Chuck and Jason shared an amused look before grabbing Jughead, and Reggie Mantle surprised Betty by picking her up from behind like she was a sack of flour. They shoved the two together into the designated make-out coat closet and locked the door behind them. 

Betty tumbled onto the closet floor, a jumble of limbs mixed in with Jughead. She sprung up in a rage from the ground and threw her shoulder against the door in an attempt to get out that was done more from frustration than an actual belief she could barrel the door down. Jughead got up too and pounded on the door next to her with a tight fist. 

“You can come out when you two comply,” Cheryl shouted on the other side. “We want photographic evidence of a kiss sent to one of our phones.”

“Assholes!” Betty shouted back at her, giving the door a double set of birds. 

“Have fun!” Cheryl crooned.

Betty let out another frustrated shout at the locked door, which Cheryl responded to by cranking up the party’s music. Betty looked around and picked up her phone. She’d dropped in all the excitement. The sight of it made her swear under her breath. 

“We’re going to have to use your phone, Jug,” she said, showing him the cracked and blackened screen. She tried pushing the power button but nothing happened.

Jughead was running his hands through his hair and smoothing out his dress shirt in an attempt to compose himself. “Oh that sucks, Betts,” he said, pausing to touch the cracks in her screen. Then his brow furrowed and he asked, “Use my phone?”

“Yeah,” Betty said. “To take a picture.” Jughead gave her another uncomprehending look so she sarcastically mimicked a camera taking a photo with her fingers. 

“I’m not going to make you kiss me, Betty,” Jughead said, taking a few steps past her. The walk-in was not very big. It took him only two strides to put the entire length of the closet between them. 

“Well I’m not sitting in here all night, so just get it over with.” She said, her face hot again. 

Jughead looked to Betty, then to the door, then back to Betty again. He shoved his hands into his pockets, a nervous habit he’d always had when he didn’t know what to do.  “C’mon Betts, don’t just give Cheryl what she wants. She’s messing with you. She’s been scheming all day to-” Jughead cut himself off, a flash of guilt crossing his face.

“Scheming about what?” Betty asked, voice stern. When he didn’t answer right away, she added, “Spit it out, Jones.”

Jughead tried to play it off as nothing. “Just dumb jokes from earlier. She’s going to get bored in ten minutes and move on to something else.”

“What was she saying?” Betty demanded.

“She’s uh…” Jughead squirmed, searching for the right phrasing. “She’s very interesting in your romantic history.”

Betty crossed her arms. “I have no romantic history.”

“That’s what makes her so interested. Apparently you’ve been annoying her lately with the different causes you’ve been advocating and it’s Cheryl’s theory that you just need…” Jughead gave her a pleading look, asking for her to understand without him having to say it. 

Betty replied with an unforgiving, stone face. 

Jughead sighed and pressed on. “She thinks you just need a good, uh, hook up. Problem is, no one could tell her who you’d want to hook up with. So she’s been scheming to get you alone either with me or Veronica.” Jughead shrugged. “Bottle landed on me.”

Betty felt a small amount of tension leave her. At least she knew what was going on now. She ran her fingers through her own matted hair, suddenly conscious of how frazzled she looked. Her hands fell to her dress’s deep neckline and she toyed with the fraying material as she thought.  

“First of all,” she said. “The level of interest that Cheryl has in my sexual preference is unsettling. I really think she just needs to explore some things for herself and leave the rest of us alone.”

Jughead cracked a smile. He seemed relieved to have her calm again. 

“Second,” Betty went on, “A warning would’ve been nice.”

Jughead sighed. “I didn’t think she was actually going to do anything. We were half a glass away from her picking her own make-out buddy and disappearing for the night.”

Betty gave him another stern look. 

Jughead raised his hands defensively. “But fair enough, a warning next time. I didn’t want to ruin your night. You never get dressed up and come out with us, I didn’t want to spook you.”

“Well this is really convincing me that we should do this more often.” Betty said, gesturing to their surroundings. 

Jughead looked around. “Yeah, not our strongest case.” Then he looked at her and his face grew more serious. “I just don’t think it’s right to force you to something you don’t want to do, even if everyone else thinks it’s a joke” he explained. “It’s just a stupid game.”

_ And if I wanted to? _ Betty wondered. She looked at Jughead with his kind, earnest face.  _ Would you still be so against kissing me? _ She wanted to say it outloud. She could feel the words pushing against the edge of her lips. If she just said it, maybe then she’d have that one moment she’d been wondering about ever since they were in junior high. And it wouldn’t even matter if he liked it or not because it wouldn’t really mean anything. They could just laugh off the bad kiss as part of a dumb game.  

Betty swallowed hard and shoved those words back down inside of her. No, she couldn’t let that happen. She couldn’t let something that would mean so much to her be so meaningless to him.  

“So,” Betty said, once she was sure she could successfully hide what she was thinking. “How do you propose we get out of this closet?”


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A longer chapter than the first that includes a flashback to the last time Betty let her friends drag her to a dance.  
> Appreciate the comments and the kudos

The plan was not great, but it was the only thing they could come up with. 

Jughead was texting Veronica to stay up-to-date. Apparently the fight Betty had put up delighted Cheryl and she was more vigilant than ever. Veronica sent him a picture of the closet door. It had a chair wedged under the doorknob and a semi-attentive Reggie Mantle on guard. So they weren’t going to bust out of the room anytime soon. 

Instead, they were going to fake it. 

“If we get the right angle,” Jughead insisted. “It’ll be convincing enough.” Jughead had his phone’s camera flipped around and was swinging his arm to test the view. He had Betty standing in front of him and he was trying to figure out if it was more convincing if the camera was angled was behind her head or his. 

“This seems like more work than actually just kissing.” Betty said, only half-joking.

“The things I do for your honor, Cooper.” Jughead said, still staring at his camera. He took her by the arm and brought her a little closer to him. Betty knew she was supposed to laugh, but a rush of nerves caught it in her throat.  His touch was so firm and he was so much taller than she was. When had that happened? Jughead hadn’t shot up like a lot of other boys had. Instead he had always been steadily growing from the wiry, gangliness of childhood to the strong frame of a man he was now. But it was one thing to admire it from afar, and another thing entirely to feel those changes so close to her own body. 

Jughead’s phone buzzed with another text from Veronica. He took a step back and angled the phone so Betty could see too. Veronica had sent them a series of pictures of Archie and a few guys shirtless, a round of shots, Archie again, and then her own face saddened by their absence. Jughead smirked at the last one. He raised his phone and took a picture of he and Betty together. He made a very serious, thinking face, and Betty, caught off guard, awkwardly smiled. Betty watched him type out,  _ Making our calculations, _ before sending it with the picture. 

“Okay,” Jughead said, opening up the camera on his phone again. “I think probably over here will be easiest for me to take…” Jughead raised the camera to Betty’s left, slightly behind her ear. “Let’s see if it works. 

Jughead placed his hand on her lower back and brought her closer to him with a casual ease of assumed by their lifetime of friendship. Betty stumbled closer to him, raised her hands to his chest to steady herself and then quickly dropped them to her side. She tried not to be aware of every inch of her skin hovering just a breath away from every inch of his. This wasn’t the same as sitting side-by-side at lunch, or a casual head on a shoulder, or even a quick hug they sometimes shared. This felt intimate. Her stomach, her chest was against his stomach, his chest. Her legs kept brushing his legs as they both shifted their weight from foot to foot. The closer they got, the more she was sure he would notice her rapid heartbeat, her short breath, and the blush threatening to take over her entire body. 

Of all the lifetime friends to have, couldn’t she have found one less beautiful? 

Betty was getting lost in the details of Jughead’s face and was missing something he was saying. “What?” she said, her own voice sounding muffled and far away from her. 

“I said, you’re going to have to bring your face closer.” Jughead said. “For the picture.”

“Oh-okay,” Betty stammered. She brought up the tip of her nose so that it was a few inches from his. “Is this ok?” she asked. 

Jughead’s eyes flashed to his phone and he adjusted his head a little. Then he took her face by the chin and brought her just a little bit closer to him, so that now their noses were side by side and just barely touching. He glanced back at Betty. “Sorry if my breath is bad,” he muttered. They were so close, she could feel the words on her mouth as he spoke them. She could see the dark blue that circled the light blue of his eyes. Strands of his curly hair were tickling her forehead. 

“Same,” she muttered back. 

Jughead’s thumb grazed her chin and his fingers lingered there for just a second too long before he dropped his hand back to his side. 

It was probably - no, it was definitely her imagination. 

Jughead cracked a smile and she felt it spread contagiously to her own mouth and she wished that were it. She wished that could be the moment she stayed in, close and happy, and that the rest of the world outside of them would stop mattering so damn much. 

Then Jughead’s phone buzzed again. Betty jumped. 

“Ack,” he said apologetically. “Ronnie again.” He took another step back so that he could respond to her. Betty stood there awkwardly, waiting, letting her lungs fill back up with air. She ran her fingers along the neckline of her dress, the sensation soothing her just a little. 

“Ok,” he said, turning back to her. “Let’s give it a go.” Jughead closed the gap between them again and brought his nose so that it was just next to hers. Then he closed his eyes. Betty slowly closed her eyes too, lingering for just an extra second on his face before she heard the ping of another text and her eyes flew open at the sound. 

Jughead stepped back and checked his phone. He chuckled and showed her the picture. There was Jughead, looking dreamy and leaning into a kiss. And there was Betty, wide-eyed and terrified looking, eyes sideways like she was trying to catch a glimpse of the camera. “A miss I think,” he said with another laugh. “You should probably close your eyes.” 

Betty wanted to die. “Yeah,” she replied, trying to force a smile. “Good call.”

□□□

Betty was back in seventh grade again.

Seventh grade had introduced a lot of new things to the trio of Veronica, Jughead and Betty. Some, Betty was ready for. She was excited for junior high, for new, harder classes, for getting to try out for real plays and writing for a newspaper that would get published on paper. The rest of it, Betty was not ready for. There was suddenly makeup, crushes, training bras, changing clothes for gym, and worst of all, co-ed dances.

Veronica, Jughead and Betty had decided early that they would attend that year’s Fall Ball as a group, but Betty had a sinking feeling that this was just a way for Jughead to keep Veronica from saying yes to the numerous boys who had asked her, and to hide the fact that no one even attempted to ask Betty.

It didn’t help that this was back in the day where Betty’s mom was around, but not  _ really _ around. She’d had to go dress shopping with her poor, useless dad, who Betty couldn’t bring herself to ask for anything too expensive or nice. She knew he was working double shifts at the time, so she picked something from the clearance rack and grabbed a cheap pair of shoes without trying them on. 

Betty showed up to school in a too-casual summer dress wearing too-formal shiny black shoes that were so big they slipped off the back of her heels when she walked. When Veronica saw her, she’d cupped Betty’s face with her hands like she was finding a sad, lost kitten and sighed a heavy, pitiful sigh over her.

Betty hated everything about it. She hated the way her legs itched in her tights because her dad wouldn’t let her shave her legs. She hated that she had no idea she was supposed to curl up her hair or put on makeup until she had shown up looking pretty much like she did every other day. But most of all, Betty hated all the couples everywhere.

Jughead and Veronica should’ve been the couple. Everyone knew it. But there Betty was, hanging off of Jughead’s other arm in all the pictures, stuck in there like she accidentally wandered in from the street.

She had been in plenty of awkward social situations before, but it was the first time she remembered being around her friends and truly wishing she could just disappear.

For most of the night, Betty managed to succeed in being relatively unnoticed. After the mortifying pictures, everyone stood around to chat in a crowd and then danced in that same crowd and then went and got snacks in a crowd after. Betty was able to follow the flow and blend in.

But as the night went on, kids around her were getting bolder and hyped up on sugary snacks. More kids were making the move to couple up. 

Then came the dreaded moment. The song shifted to a low tempo drum beat.  _ We are Young _ by the band Fun. started playing. Not only had it decidedly been THE song of their seventh grade, but it also had the benefits of being a slower song, but not intensely romantic and so everyone around them paired off. Betty turned to look at Veronica to suggest they retreat for snacks again, but she had disappeared somewhere. Betty was alone in the middle of a dance floor rapidly filling with couples. 

Then someone took her hand. 

Betty looked up and it was Jughead. He had taken her hand in both of his and was mouthing the lyrics to the song enthusiastically. 

> _ Give me a second I, _
> 
> _ I need to get my story straight _
> 
> _ My friends are in the bathroom  _
> 
> _ getting higher than the Empire State _

Betty stifled a laugh behind her free hand. She let him pull her into the dance. 

Now, Betty and Jughead had grown up together, so they had, on occasion, danced like idiots together. This was different. She had never had a boy’s hands on her hips or had to figure out where to look when his face was just a foot away from hers. Jughead seemed perfectly comfortable with the arrangement. He was fully invested in the song, and swung Betty around to the melody. Betty focused on trying to keep her oversized shoes on her feet without stepping on Jughead or tripping them up. 

“I feel like everyone is staring,” she managed to shout in his ear. 

“Good for them,” he replied. “They could learn a thing or two.” Jughead spun her out and then pulled her back into him in a clumsy but fancy dance move that made Betty’s skirt swirl around her. Betty didn’t want to admit it, but she was really enjoying herself, even if Jughead was being a ham about it.  

“No,” she said. “It’s because everyone thinks I’m a freak.” 

Jughead’s brow furrowed and for the first time in the song, he stopped mouthing along with the words. “That’s stupid,” he said. 

Betty pursed her lips. Did he really not notice? Couldn’t he tell that everything about her that night was wrong? Wrong dress, wrong hair, wrong shoes. Wrong and dateless.

“Everyone knows you’re just here for Veronica,” she said, not sure how else to put it. 

“Everyone?” he asked, eyebrows raised. “Who is this everyone you keep talking to? They sound like assholes.”

Betty smiled for the first time that night, a big, goofy, happy grin that spread slowly across her face and didn’t fade.  

“Betty you are just as much my date as Veronica is,” Jughead said, his mouth close to her ear so that his voice gave her goosebumps down her neck.  “So screw them all.” He gave her another dramatic spin.  

“Yeah,” she agreed. “Screw them all.”

Veronica came and found them as soon as the slow dance ended. “Guys,” she squealed, grabbing each of their arms excitedly. “You’ll never believe this. Chuck Clayton invited us to the Blossom twins’ after party.”

Betty had a suspicion the invitation had been meant only for Veronica. The Thornhill after parties had a reputation for being scandalous because they were so lightly supervised. They had called it Make-Out Manor on more than one occasion. 

“Did you guys hear me?” Veronica asked when they hadn’t said anything. “It’s an eighth grade party that we, lowly seventh graders, will be attending!”

Jughead looked less enthused. “I don’t know if my parents will be okay with me hanging out with the Blossoms.”

Veronica rolled her eyes dramatically. “Duh,” she said like it was obvious. “You aren’t going to tell them. We’ll say we’re at my place and my mom will drive us.”

Betty looked from an eager Veronica to a reluctant Jughead. She could still feel the happy rush from her dance with Jughead. And now she had the opportunity to follow it up with a trip to Make-Out Manor?

“Let’s do it,” Betty said. “What’s the worst that could happen?”

□□□

Things had quieted down outside of the closet. Betty thought the game might be over, because instead of random shouts and cheers there was just a low murmur of voices mixed in with the music. 

Betty strained to peek at Jughead’s phone without him noticing, eager to see if he was sending the embarrassing miss photo to Veronica or not. Jughead hit send and she heard Veronica’s laughter on the other side of the closet door. She groaned internally. 

“Take two?” Jughead asked, his attention back on her. Betty nodded. 

This time when she came together, she closed her eyes right away. She didn’t think about Jughead or of Veronica, or how they kept texting, or of the weird closet they were stuck in because Jughead wouldn’t kiss her because she couldn’t tell him that she kind of wanted him to kiss her but only if he wanted to, otherwise she never wanted him to ever think about this situation ever again. No, no more thinking of any of that. 

Betty heard the camera click next to her ear and she stepped away, needing the distance between them before she opened her eyes again. 

“Well,” Jughead said, brows furrowed. “This one is okay, but…” He faced the phone to her so she could see. “You look so...sad.”

Betty sighed. She felt exhausted. “Maybe I just look sad when I fake-kiss people, who knows.”

Jughead chewed on his thumb while he thought. “Ok,” he muttered. “Let me send it to Ronnie, see what she thinks.” He sent the text and then absentmindedly started scrolling through his phone. It looked like he was rereading his conversation with Veronica. 

Betty pressed her back to the far wall of the closet and watched him. “Are you…” she ventured before changing her mind. This closet was not the time or the place to ask him. 

“Am I what?” Jughead asked, eyes still on his phone. 

“Nevermind,” Betty said, shaking her head. 

“No really, am I what?” Jughead asked, locking and pocketing his phone. “C’mon Betts, we gotta pass the time in here somehow.” He folded his arms and leaned against the door so that they were mirror images of each other on either side of the small closet. 

Betty examined the scuffs on her sneakers as she thought about how to phrase her question. “Are you…” She looked up at him, wanting to see how he reacted.  “Are you ever going to tell Veronica? How you feel?”

A self-pitying smile grew slowly across his face. “I did,” he said with a small shrug. “A few months ago. She didn’t tell you?”

Betty shook her head, surprised. Why would Veronica keep something like that from her?

“Well, that might give you a clue about how well it went.” Jughead pulled out his phone again. “Nothing yet from Ronnie… I’m just going to send it to Cheryl. Nothing to lose at this point, right?”

Betty nodded, thinking about how to ask for details without prying too hard. She’d been aware of Jughead’s crush - everyone had - ever since they were kids. Jughead and Veronica were neighbors, jocks, on student council together, had been crowned homecoming king and queen two years in a row and were a shoe-in for senior prom. They’d always seemed like a pre-written love story everyone was waiting to see play out. 

But Veronica was never very serious about having a boyfriend. Betty always figured that one day she would be, and when she was, there Jughead would be, waiting for her. Jughead was dedicated to the slow-game, always willing to be a friend first. It was one of the things Betty secretly loved about him. 

Somehow, her two best friend’s dynamics had changed a few months ago and she hadn’t even been clued in?

“So…” Betty ventured, only to be met with Jughead’s raised hand. 

“It’s ok,” Jughead said, checking his phone again. Betty wondered if he was more anxious to hear from Veronica or from Cheryl. “I’ll tell you the highlights. I asked her to be my date for tonight. A real date this time, not as friends. She insisted that she was so close to getting you to come with us and didn’t want you to feel excluded, so we agreed we’d go as a group. Like the good old days,” he added with a smirk. “That was fine, until news got around that Archie was taking Veronica as his date. I confronted her and she admitted she just wasn’t into it. That it should be a no-brainer, but she just never felt it.”

Betty nodded and tried to think back. She was there when Jughead got worked up at the Archie/Veronica gossip. Veronica seemed stressed rather than excited like she usually did about this date. Betty had been so wrapped up in her own anxiety about the dance that she hadn’t really paid attention to either instance. 

She felt the smallest flicker of hope somewhere deep inside of her. If Jughead and Veronica were never going to be a thing...

“And you’re…” Betty started asking.

“Fine,” Jughead insisted. “It was something I always wondered about and now I can finally put it behind me. No use pining for something that’ll never happen, right?”

Betty felt a stab in her gut and that little flicker of hope she'd felt went dark. “Sure,” she agreed.

Jughead’s phone buzzed again and he whipped it out to check it. His shoulders slumped when he saw the text. “She didn’t buy it,” he said, shaking his head. “I’m sending an S.O.S. to Ronnie.”

“What did Cheryl say?” Betty asked.

“She’s demanding to see lip on lip,” Jughead replied, eyes still glued to the phone as he composed a couple more messages to Veronica.  

Betty watched him closely. Maybe she hadn’t noticed a change because there hadn’t been much of one yet in Jughead. He’d been obsessively texting Veronica the entire time they’d been in this closet. Betty remembered that smirk he’d had on his face when he’d gotten a picture of Veronica’s face. Maybe there was still something lingering there. 

Jughead frowned at his phone, but it stayed silent. Betty had a knowing feeling inside of her. Without her friends there to distract her, it was very likely that it had gotten late enough and Veronica had decided to follow Archie home after all. 

“Are you over it?” Betty asked him, suddenly bold.

Jughead looked up at Betty’s question. “Over Veronica?” he shrugged. “What is there to get over? We were never even a thing. She’s never going to see me as anything but her goofy grade school friend, she made that pretty clear. No matter how we change, she won’t be able to get over that.” 

Betty shrugged too. “Not so crazy. Isn’t that how you see me?”

Jughead’s self-pitying smile slowly faded from his lips and he stared at her, something moving behind his eyes that Betty couldn’t define. 

Betty laughed a hollow laugh to play it off then slid down the wall and crossed her legs. She had a feeling they were going to be in there a long time. 


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Flashback to the first time Betty played by the Blossom rules at Thornhill

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Y'all are warming my heart with all the kudos and comments. Thank you.

When they were all kids, Thornhill Manor had always been the house for pumpkin carving, fourth of july, class graduations, and of course the twin’s birthdays, but the after party that followed the Fall Bash was the first time Betty had ever been to a Thornhill party that was parent-free and completely unsupervised. 

Betty sat in a circle with a dozen or so of her classmates, yanking at the part of her dress that pinched her under her arms, and listened to Cheryl spell out the ridiculous Blossom Rules of her version of spin the bottle. She’d expected Veronica and Jughead to object to Cheryl’s game like they usually did when Cheryl tried goading them into anything, but to her shock, her friends agreed to play. 

“Veronica,” Betty hissed at her friend in surprise. 

Veronica responded by elbowing Betty in the ribs. “Be cool, Bee. Don’t be such a kid.” 

Betty didn’t know how to respond to that. She had a deep-seeded rebellion in her that flared up whenever she was getting roped along into something just because everyone else was doing it. What a dumb reason to do anything. She thought briefly about leaving, but Veronica was her ride, and Veronica was making some serious eyes with Chuck Clayton across the table. 

_ Make-Out Manor, _ Betty reminded herself. She felt her cheeks flush as she looked at Jughead, but Jughead was watching Veronica with his own look of determination on his face.  Betty sighed and agreed to play too. 

She quickly regretted that. 

The first one to land on her was Chuck, who passed and took off his shirt to the whistles and hoots of everyone in the circle. Betty laughed that one off. 

The next one to land on her was Reggie. He also passed. Then Chuck again, then Kevin Keller, then Moose, then Jason, and Chuck again. Pass. Pass. Pass, pass, pass. Half the guys in the circle were in various states of disrobement, all thanks to landing on Betty. No one else was passed on. Kevin Keller even planted one on Moose, right on the lips, and everyone hollered with laughter. 

Betty was on the verge of tears. 

Then, as luck would have it, Jughead landed on her. Her friend. Her friend who didn’t give a damn about what anyone else thought of her. Betty felt like she could breath again without running the risk of sobbing.  He leaned across the table and made a big show of crawling over to her that made everyone giggle. Betty leaned in and closed her eyes, relieved to finally be part of the game. 

At the last minute though, Jughead rolled his wrist and stumbled so that the kiss hit her on the side of her face instead of being softly planted on her lips. Everyone roared with laughter. Betty’s ears rang from embarrassment. 

Jughead made a joke of it. “Guess you’re untouchable tonight Betty.”

Betty didn’t move. She knew she was making it worse by not laughing with everyone else, but she felt like if she let one inch of her face move that she would absolutely lose it. 

“Aw, that’s ok,” Cheryl crooned. “Hostess declares a re-do. Maybe you’ll have better luck this time.” Cheryl spun the bottle for Jughead again and this time landed on Veronica. 

Veronica was sitting right next to him, so he grabbed her face and gave her a long, sloppy, seventh grade kind of kiss. Their lips made a loud popping noise as they separated. Betty felt all the air get sucked out of her lungs. 

“No fair!” Veronica laughed as she wiped her mouth. “You can’t go straight for the french.”

Jughead shrugged sheepishly at Veronica and at the same time accepted several high fives from the other guys in the circle. 

Betty stood up abruptly, jostling the table and sending the full and corked wine bottle smashing on the ground. It erupted in dark red. 

“You freak!” Cheryl screamed at her. “My dad is going to murder me.”

Betty barely noticed the wine splashed all over her. She stared at her friends, hot tears burning in her eyes. Jughead was watching her, the smile fading from his face. She turned around and leapt over the back of the couch and made a break for the front door. 

“Betty!” Jughead called after her. But Betty didn’t stick around. She ran straight out of Thornhill and didn’t look back.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've extended the Betty/Jughead role reversal to their families, so there are hints of Hal, like FP, being a struggling and absentee dad, and little Polly (in place of Jellybean) getting caught in the crosshairs. In this version I decided (for reasons you can message me about if you like) that when Alice left it would be by herself. This means that JB is Jughead's older sister, but not sure if she'll be mentioned yet. 
> 
> Again, thank you for all the kudos and comments. You all are really motivating my Nov ambitions <3

Betty and Jughead had been sitting in silence for the past half hour. The music Cheryl had turned up to max volume was only slightly muffled by the coats hanging around them. Jughead was laying on his back with his feet propped up against the door. He was lazily scrolling through his phone while pulling at a curl of hair and letting it fall onto his face over and over again.

Betty had her eyes closed. She was self-sorting - a mental exercise she’d started a few years ago. After several of what the school counselor labeled “episodes,” Betty realized she wasn’t very good with processing her emotions. She’d found that adding a logical process to it helped. It was weird, but it helped. She would sort through everything she was feeling in that moment and decide which of those emotions she was going to let herself feel, and which she wasn’t ready to face.

_ I’m angry, _ Betty thought, and felt it like fire under her skin. It made her heart beat like a slow and sullen hammer inside her chest. Her friends were not being honest with her. She was not being honest with her friends. The more they kept from her, the more she felt she needed to keep from them. This whole spin the bottle experience was opening up some seriously traumatic memories. Why couldn’t she just fit in like everyone else? Why couldn’t she just tell Jughead how she felt? Why did she always have to be so weird?

She’d have to deal with being angry with her friends. She was, after all, stuck with one of them. She let that linger, rolling around like a molten pit inside of her.

She could not handle questioning why the combination of her personality and life experiences gave her crippling social anxiety and trust issues. She wasn’t ready for that one. That one needed to be sorted away for later.

And she was not going to figure out why she couldn’t tell Jughead how she felt. Not when he was still hung up on Veronica. Filed away.

_ I’m afraid, _ Betty thought next, and there it was, pooling icey cold in her gut. It’s pressure pushed up through her spine and made her neck prickle. She was afraid she was going to be stuck in this closet with Jughead all night. What if she had to go to the bathroom? What if he did? What if they broke down the door and Cliff Blossom decided to charge them with property damage? What if her dad came home for once and noticed her missing? What if he lost his temper when he saw her broken phone? What if her little sister, Polly got scared at the sleepover Betty had set up for her and was calling her because she wanted to come home?

Betty’s eyes flew open. “Jughead, give me your phone.”

Jughead looked up at her from behind his mess of wavy hair. “Are we talking again?” he asked.

“Just give it to me,” she demanded.

Jughead put his phone on the hardwood floor and slid it over to her. She typed in her sister’s number and sent it a quick text. She noticed the battery was getting low, so she sent another text telling Polly not to worry about her if she doesn’t hear back, to just stay with her friend until Betty can come get her. Betty passed the phone back to Jughead and returned to her meditation.

One less thing to be afraid of.

Betty couldn’t control what her dad did, so she filed that one away. She didn’t feel any strain on her bladder, so she let that one go too. And if Jughead had to go? She peeked out at him. He had resumed scrolling through his phone and was tapping his feet to the pop song that played on the other side of the door. Well, that might be a blessing in disguise. Maybe she would be a little less attracted to him after.

“Is your sister okay?” Jughead asked, interrupting her thoughts.

“Did you look at my texts?” She asked back.

Jughead rolled over and looked up at her. “Technically my phone, my texts,” he said with a smirk. “So I looked at my texts.”

Betty pursed her lips. “Sometimes she gets scared at sleepovers. Trust issues.”

Jughead hesitated in his response. He knew her whole messy history with her mom leaving them. He’d been there for all of that. She watched his face scrunch up and search for the right thing to say.

“How are you laying on this floor?”  Betty asked, wanting to change the subject. Her own bottom half was starting to feel stiff.

Jughead watched her as if deciding whether or not things were really ok. “Better question,” he offered. “Who has hardwood in their closets?”

Betty looked around and considered. “Probably the same people who have sixteen fur coats in storage,” she said and pointed.

A smirk returned to his face as he gazed up at the racks around them. He yanked a coat down from its hanger and ripped the dry cleaner’s plastic off to reveal velvety smooth fur underneath. Then he ripped down two more coats and did the same. One coat he pulled on and Betty smiled with amusement at how his long arms stuck too far out the end of the sleeves. The next coat he lay in the center of the closet, folding it vertically to make one long rectangle of plush fur. The last one he tossed to Betty. Then he gave the coat on the floor a  _ pat-pat _ , indicating she should join him before he rolled back onto his back and lay on his new pillow.

“Ahhhh…” Jughead sighed.

Now Betty knew she was pretty stubborn, but it was hard to refuse something soft after thirty minutes of hardwood. So she wrapped herself in the fur he had tossed to her, turned to lay on her back, and rest her head next to Jughead’s. He was an upside down fur bundle with a small, wild-haired head on top and she was sure she looked the same. She propped her feet up on the back closet wall, so again they mirrored each other, both pairs of feet tapping to the music outside.

“Jug,” Betty said in a stern tone. “I think it’s time to start taking this seriously.”

Jughead gave her a quizzical look. “What are you talking about?”

“We’re going to have to live in this closet.” She raised her hands in the air like she was picturing a banner. “We’ll call it Closet Town.”

Jughead chuckled in surprise at the joke. Betty smiled too. She couldn’t help it: she loved making him laugh.

“You will, naturally, be our settlement’s leader. I, of course, will be the historian. I’ll have to use the resources we have in here to fashion paper and ink, somehow. The world must know our story. And I know you objected to kissing me, but we will have to consider repopulation at one point.”

Jughead raised an eyebrow at her.  “You really want to bring more people into this closet?”

Betty considered the space again. “Fair enough.”

“Jughead Jones, proud citizen of Closet Town,” he said with a salute.

“Why are you saluting me, Jones?” Betty asked. “I’m your historian, not your general.”

Jughead shrugged. “I guess I’m just reporting for duty,” he said. “Seemed appropriate.”

Betty felt some warmth returning to her, a feeling she attributed to the furs, though part of her knew that wasn’t entirely the truth.

The music outside paused as it switched over to a new song. The first notes were a simple drum beat that sounded familiar, but Betty couldn’t quite place it.

But Jughead clearly recognized it immediately, because his head snapped to look at her with wide, mischievous eyes. He bounced up from his place on the ground, spun in a goofy flourish and offered his hand to Betty. It was an invitation to dance.

Outside the closet, the first verse of the song started and Betty was suddenly brought back to 7th grade all over again. She couldn’t help but smile.

Jughead mouthed the opening lines:

_          Give me a second I _

_          I need to get my story straight _

**** _ My friends are in the bathroom _

_          Getting higher than the empire state _

And then smiled at her. “C’mon,” Jughead goaded. “Dance with me.”

Betty felt the impulse to refuse press on her. It was stupid. She’d look stupid. But then there was Jughead, in a fur coat clearly meant for a much older woman, already tapping his foot and waiting for her to join him.

So she took his hand let him pull her up from the ground.

They dramatically circled each other, doing something closer to an interpretive dance than anything else as the song started to pick up. And then they heard what was left of the crowd outside the closet singing at the top of their lungs with the chorus:

_          Toni-i-iiii-iiiiight-iiight _

_          We are yooooung _

Betty and Jughead looked at each other and laughed and then joined in themselves.

_          So let's set the world on fire _

_          We can burn brighter _

_          Than the suuuuu-uuu-uu-uu-un _

At the prolonged note on "sun" Jughead grabbed her by the waist and spun her around him. Betty’s coat flew of her shoulders. Then he pulled her close to him, one arm around her waist, one holding her hand like they were slow dancing, but at a slightly faster pace.

This closeness felt different than before. Much less nerve-wrecking and more comfortable, like they fit in a way she hadn’t noticed before. Maybe it was because she wasn’t posing for a picture anymore. Maybe because no one would see them.

Jughead spun her out and then pulled her back into him in a smooth and familiar dance move that made Betty’s skirt swirl around her.

“Still got the moves,” she said, and Jughead smiled and nodded as he mouthed the words.

They settled into a comfortable sway that just barely followed the song. Jughead lost some of his enthusiasm for the lyrics and was watching Betty again, watching like he was determined to figure something out.

“This song always bummed me out,” Betty admitted, hoping to break up the silence and some of his concentration.

Jughead cocked his head. “Why’s that?” he asked before throwing Betty into another spin, this one gentler to go with their lazy pace.

“I don’t want to ruin it for you,” she said, shaking her head. Veronica often yelled at her for explaining the lyrics to songs she loved and then had a harder time loving afterwards.

“You won’t,” Jughead said, pulling her back into him. “Promise.”

“Well, the guy’s singing about hurting someone he loves in the beginning,” Betty explained. “And about thinking about the “scar” he’s given her, and then the rest of the song is about drinking your troubles away instead of dealing with them.” Betty could feel her face get a little hot. She was treading back onto subjects of home, of things she knew Jughead knew, but she knew she didn’t want to talk about.  

Jughead nodded thoughtfully. “I guess,” he replied, looking at her in that searching way again. “But I always thought of it being more about second chances, you know? He’s got this history, and he knows it’s his fault, but then he waits around and sees if he can take care of her at the end of the night. You know, carry her home.” Jughead said the line just as the band started its chant at the end of the song and he smiled as if he had cued it himself.

“Alright,” Betty admitted. His version was kinder and much more romantic. She didn’t know if she bought it quite yet. “Guess that’s one way of seeing it.”

Betty had her arm slung up on Jughead’s fur clad shoulder and she rested her head on it. She was tired and this night was draining her. Maybe it wasn’t so bad just being Jughead’s friend. He was a good friend to have. Look at them now. While she was frantically trying to keep her emotions in check, Jughead’s main concern was cheering her up and finding a way to make all this fun.

Jughead rested his cheek on the top of her head and their dance started slowing, falling out of sync with the music, until they were just standing there, holding each other for a long moment.

“Hey Betty…” Jughead murmured into her hair.

“Hm?” she said. She felt sleepy and oddly happy and only minimally willing to talk.

“Listen,” he said, slowly drawing it out like he didn’t know how to bring it up. “With Veronica…”

Betty stiffened.

Of course he would bring up Veronica.

Here Betty was thinking they had been sharing a sweet, caring moment together and Jughead had been focused on one thing. Why would they ever have a conversation that didn’t circle back to his long-time crush? She inhaled a long, deep breath and held it in.

Jughead opened his mouth to say more and she put her hand up to stop him. Talking was suddenly the very last thing she wanted to do.

Betty pulled away. What did she think she was doing, holding onto Jughead like that? She must be more tired than she realized. She slipped off her fur coat and kicked it over to the back wall so she could upgrade her previous sitting position with its cushion. At least she’d be a little more comfortable now.

Jughead stood where she left him and Betty didn’t risk a look at his face. She didn’t want to know what he was thinking.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I had to do some role-reversal extension in this chapter because some parents show up. Since Veronica has swapped roles with Archie, I have Hiram (in a very Fred Andrews way) being helpful and supportive, Hermione still being around (pre-divorce), and Gladys Jones hinted at being a domineering figure. Hope that makes sense. 
> 
> Thank you again for all the feedback. I love these characters so much and you all are the best people to share that with.

Betty had raced away from the horrific Fall Bash after-party, out of Thornhill Manor, down it’s winding driveway and pulled open the gate before Jughead had caught up with her. He grabbed her shoulder and spun her around.

“Betty, slow down,” he said, panting from his sprint.

But Betty had had enough for the night. She let out a frustrated snarl and shoved her friend away. 

“Get away from me, Jones.” She warned. She made her way through the gate and then stared at the open road for a second before deciding which direction she was going in. 

Jughead grabbed her arm to stop her and she snatched it back from him. 

“I swear to god, Jones, touch me one more time.” Betty said, raising a threatening finger under Jughead’s nose. “One more time.”

Jughead raised his hands in surrender. “Okay, okay no touching.” He promised. 

Betty’s vision blurred with tears that kept falling in hot streams down her face. Her mouth felt too full of spit. Her throat was clamped up to keep her roiling stomach contained. She looked away from Jughead. If he would just stop looking at her like that for a minute she could compose herself again. 

“Are you-” he started.

She cut him off. “No, I am not okay, Jughead.”

“C’mon Betty,” he said, voice pleading with her. “No one meant anything by it. It’s just a dumb game.”

Betty gave him an incredulous look. “Oh yeah, a game, silly me,” she said, her voice trembling with her tears. “I really should learn how to just shut up and let everyone else have their fun.” 

“That’s not-” he started again, but Betty wasn’t done. 

“No, no you’re totally right” she said. “I really am too disgusting to kiss, why would I ever let that bother me?”

Jughead took a step back at her words. “I didn’t think…”

“I get it, Jones. I know what everyone thinks about me. They think I’m weird. That I don’t fit in. And you know what?” She threw her hands up, her voice getting louder with every word. “They’re right. I am weird. I live on the wrong side of town and wear all the wrong clothes and like weird things! But you know what? I don’t want to fit in and if you and Veronica were really my friends you would stop trying to make me.”

Jughead opened his mouth to say something but closed it again. She knew he was looking for the right thing to say that would fix this and make everything normal again. That’s what he was best at. But this couldn’t be fixed, not tonight and not with a couple of words. 

“You were supposed to be different, Jones,” Betty accused him, a new wave of hurt sending a fresh pool of tears to her eyes. “And you weren’t. You were just like all those other assholes back there trying to suck face with each other.”

“You’re right,” he shouted, his frustration getting the better of him. “You’re right and I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have played along. I should never have made you play either. I should’ve made them stop.” 

Betty stared at him, a long, mean, stare, not quite ready to give up her anger just yet.

“They were being mean and I should’ve made them stop,” Jughead said again, slow and definitively. He motioned as if to touch her again and then stopped and dropped his hand back to his side. 

Betty didn’t say anything. She knew he was being sincere but she didn’t want to say it was okay. Nothing about it felt okay. 

“Can we go back?” Jughead asked. “We don’t have to play or even see anyone,” he added quickly when he saw the look on her face. “We can call Veronica’s mom to come get us.”

Betty shook her head. “I can’t,” she said, voice steely. “I can’t go back there.”

“What are you going to do,” he asked.  “Walk home?”

“Yes.”

Jughead stared at her like she was crazy. “Fine.”

“Fine,” Betty agreed, anger swelling in her again. She turned on her heel and started back down the road in the direction she hoped was home. Her stupid oversized dress shoes were slipping off her feet and making it hard to stomp off. Then she saw Jughead walking next to her and she stopped in her tracks. 

“What are you doing?” Betty asked accusingly.  

“Walking,” he said firmly. 

Betty wiped her face with both hands. It was sopping wet from the mix of her tears and the light mist hanging in the night air. “Just go back to the party, Jughead. I don’t need you to walk me home.”

Jughead looked at her as if shocked. “Who said I’m walking you home? I’m on a walk. You’re on a walk. I can’t help it if you’re walking the same way I am. In fact, maybe it is you then who is walking me home and not the other way around. Consider-”

“Fine, “ Betty said, interrupting him before his explanation grew more ridiculous. “Fine, do what you want. Just, no more talking.” She started walking again, arms crossed. 

“Fine,” he agreed. And jumped up to keep pace with her. 

The walk home was a long one. Thornhill Manor and the trailer park Betty lived in were on opposite sides of Riverdale, and the further south they got, the more often Betty would pause to question exactly where they were before seeing something familiar. She wasn’t used to walking home from this direction and it was fully dark by then and everything looked slightly foreign to her. Plus, the warm October day had fallen into a crisp and misty night and so a film of fog hung over everything. It also didn’t help that the further south they got, the less street lamps there were to light their way. 

Jughead didn’t look at her as they trekked on. He kept his hands in his pockets and his eyes on the ground in front of them. 

Even when Betty would pause to consider their direction, he didn’t say anything. Once, when she was taking a minute to decide where to go next, Jughead made an abrupt left turn and started walking without her. She thought for a second with a pang of sadness that he had called it quits and left her, only to recognize the neon orange glow of the corner shop half a block away and realize he’d chosen the right direction for them. She’d pushed her wet hair back from her face and jogged down the street to catch up.

The silence was fine by her. Betty didn’t want to talk. She felt sure she’d try to pick a fight with him if he tried. 

With every step she took away from Thornhill Manor, Betty could feel the heat of her hurt and anger grow dull within her until it was like a hard pit in the center of her chest. How could she have been so stupid? What had she expected? To slip into a closet with Jughead for seven minutes and have a magical pre-teen night? Since when did things ever work out for her like that? 

She should’ve never agreed to come out to Thornhill. She should’ve never agreed to go to the dance at all. If she had just stayed behind, Jughead could’ve had the night with Veronica he so obviously wanted, and she could’ve been warm at home, watching a movie with Polly. Betty rubbed her hands down her bare arms in an effort to bring some warmth back into them. That sounded like heaven now. If she would’ve just stayed home, no one would’ve seen her poor excuse for ‘getting dressed up’ at the dance, no one would’ve gotten the chance to pass on her in the game, and she wouldn’t be soaked in sticky and stinking wine and walking home with a pissed off Jughead. Well, she’d learned her lesson and wasn’t going to make that mistake again. 

Something slipped around her shoulders and brought her out of her thoughts. Jughead had put his jacket around her then stuffed his hands back in his pockets and continued forward, eyes glued to the ground. 

Betty watched him for a while but he didn’t look at her. She was cold and wet and fairly exhausted from the high emotions of the night, so she slipped her arms into the sleeves without a word about it. 

About forty minutes into their walk, Betty began to recognize streets they were on. They were close. Her home would be just around the corner. Her tiny, rundown, warm and wonderful trailer that she would never complain about again. 

And thank goodness because her brand new shoes were rubbing her feet raw. The sidewalk had turned into a kind of gravel a few blocks ago, meaning it had a lot more uneven holes to avoid, which was getting harder the less lamplight they had. Betty had tripped a few times, but was able to bounce back up from it and keep up with Jughead. That was annoying, but the worst of it was the fact that her shoes were so big and she had these dumb tights on, so her shoes kept slipping around on her feet and rubbing all the wrong places. 

No sooner had she relished in the thought of chucking them as far as she could into the forest preserve behind her home, that several things happened all at once. 

Betty tripped on the uneven ground again. This time though, when she tripped, her foot stuck in place and threw her off balance. It twisted painfully and slipped out of the oversized, rooted shoe. Jughead leapt to steady her but she still flailed a little and her other shoe flew off and tumbled down into the drainage ditch that ran alongside the road. She hopped uncomfortably on the gravel, her ankle tender, and stared unbelieving at her traitorous shoes. One was stuck in mud and the other had fallen into a ditch. 

“Son of a bitch,” she murmured.

Without a word, Jughead slung her arm around his neck and turned his body so she faced his back. It took her a second to realize what he was doing. He was offering to carry her piggy-back the rest of the way. 

They arrived on Betty’s doorstep like that. Two sopping wet, exhausted pre-teens, one shoeless and covered in red wine on the back of the other. 

Betty’s dad ripped open the front door when he saw it was them. 

The inside of the trailer was just as warm as Betty had dreamed about on the walk home and her skin tingled as the cold started leaving it. Veronica’s dad was there too, on the phone, and so was little Polly, wide-eyed and wrapped in a blanket on the couch.  

“Oh my god, Betty,” Hal said, pulling her off of Jughead and cupping her face in his hands. He took her in, the whole confusing, messy image. “What happened? What happened, are you ok?”

Hiram had hung up his phone and rushed to the back of the trailer. He returned with clean towels. 

“I’m fine,” Betty reassured her dad. “We’re both fine.” Polly ran up and wrapped her little arms around her and Betty held her close. 

Hal pulled the wet jacket off of her so he could drape her in a towel and got whiff of the red wine. He shot a suspicious look in Jughead’s direction. 

Betty took her dad’s face in her hands and turned it to look at her. “I’m fine, daddy. I promise.” Then she asked, “Where’s mom?”

Hal busied himself with drying Betty’s hair. “Out,” he said in a way that didn’t invite a follow up. 

Hiram bent down to level his eyes with Jughead and pulled a towel around him, using one end to wipe some condensation from his face. “You’re dad is out looking for you, Jug. That was him on the phone.” Hiram said and then added, “and we had to tell your mom. You two really gave us a scare.”

Jughead stayed determinately mute. 

“I’ll call Hermione to come get us,” Hiram said to Hal, pulling out his phone again. “Already told FP we’ll bring him home.”

Hal fumbled in the kitchen and Betty joined him to help him make some hot cocoa. By the time it cooled enough to drink though, Hermione and Veronica bust through the front door of the trailer, both of them talking a million miles per minute at the same time. 

Veronica ran over to hug Betty and then Jughead, and regaled them with her side of the story following their Thornhill exodus. Hermione gave the dads an update on what the rest of the parents were saying. Polly sat at the table and watched chaos with her wide eyes, happily sipping her late night cocoa treat. 

The parents hugged happy, grateful hugs that this whole episode had turned out to be nothing but some silly teen drama and laughed about their kids getting older. 

Betty felt strangely misplaced. Her home and the people around her were all familiar things, but Betty felt she herself had become unfamiliar, in some way. 

Everyone began filing out the trailer, waving goodbyes over their shoulder. Betty jumped up and grabbed Jughead’s hand before he could slip out too. 

She opened her mouth to say something, but nothing came out. The words hung there on the edge of her lips, waiting for her to choose the right ones, but how could the mix of things she was feeling be put into a few simple words?

Instead, Jughead gave her hand a squeeze and offered a half-smile, which she returned. Then he followed Veronica out to her car, the trailer’s door slapping its frame behind him. 


	6. Chapter 6

Jughead had stood where Betty had left him in the center of the closet, unmoving, for a while. Betty didn’t need to see it. She knew Jughead well enough that she could feel the tension rising in him. He hated being in a situation he couldn’t fix, and Betty was, by her own definition, unfixable.

Instead, Betty sat with her knees to her chest and her forehead on her knees and she was toying with her broken phone again, pressing the power button futily over and over. It felt disorienting to be without it.

She jumped as something tumbled to the ground next to her. An empty hatbox rolled across the floor and tapped the wall next to her. She looked up and saw Jughead rummaging through the storage boxes that lined the top shelves above the coat racks. He’d thrown off his fur coat and had a look of determination that stitched his brows together and made his jaw tight.

“What are you doing?” Betty asked.

But Jughead didn’t answer. He pulled open a bin and dumped winter gloves and scarves all over the ground, then tossed the bin over his shoulder.

Betty got up to her feet so that she wasn’t overtaken by the Blossom’s winter wear. “Jughead?” She said again, but he continued in his furious attack on the closet’s storage. Careful to avoid the avalanche, Betty nimbly walked around him and pressed her ear to the door.

“I don’t think anyone is out there anymore,” she said. All of the muffled talk and music had died down on the other side. “I think they actually forgot about us in here.”

“Screw them,”Jughead grumbled. He tossed a few more things to the ground then did a double take as something caught his eye. Under some of the coats at his feet he fished out a wire hanger and bent it as if to test its strength. It folded easily in his hands.  He frowned like it was a puzzle he was trying to solve, then flung that over his shoulder too.

“What time is it?” Betty asked, hoping to distract Jughead for a second from whatever crusade he was on.

Jughead responded by getting his phone out of his his pocket and tossing it to her. The clock read 2:23am. She groaned and rubbed her tired eyes. It was later than she’d thought.

The background of Jughead’s phone was a picture of Veronica, Jughead and Betty taken towards the end of the summer. She hadn’t noticed he’d changed it from its usual goofy supermario background when she’d used it earlier. The three of them had been watching Jughead’s older sister, JB, at a softball practice that day, so they were lounging on some bleachers at a park. Jughead had taken that picture, but had turned to Betty to laugh at a joke she’d just made. Veronica gazed off into the distance, sunglasses on and wind whipping her hair around her face. Betty was the only one looking into the camera, her mouth somewhere between talking and laughing.

Betty smiled. That had been a good day. They’d tried taking that picture at least a dozen times before Veronica deemed all of them unusable. The pictures had never been posted anywhere so she’d forgotten all about it.

She unlocked Jughead’s phone to check if her sister had messaged her back. Nothing, thankfully. That meant either Polly was having a good enough time to stay off her phone, or the girls had fallen asleep before she sent it. Both options were fine by her.

Betty’s eyes strayed to the message at the top of Jughead’s texts. It was his chat with Veronica. The screen showed a preview of the latest message, one from their raven haired friend that Jughead hadn’t responded to. It read, _I think you’ll be pretty happy tomorrow._

Her eyes flashed to Jughead, who had waded through his ankle-deep mess and was currently ransacking the other side of the closet. It was hard to imagine him being happy about anything any time soon.

Plus, she had thought he’d said Veronica never replied back to his S.O.S. from earlier.

Betty hadn’t thought to question that. Knowing her friend, that seemed like the most likely response. Veronica was amazing, and the best friend she could ask for, but it was like she could only pay attention to what was happening right in front of her sometimes. Betty fully expected tonight to be all about Archie, and that tomorrow would be all about their plight escaping from this closet

But this message made Betty feel like there was something she was missing.

Her finger hovered over it, tingling at the opportunity to get the whole story, the curiosity of it eating at the back of her mind.

_I think you’ll be pretty happy tomorrow._

Nothing about tonight was going to make Jughead happy. Betty had spent the night pushing him away, silencing him, accusing him, all to save face about her feelings. What could be happening tomorrow that Veronica was so sure would put a smile on Jughead’s face? Betty’s mind wandered from option to option, each more depressing than the last.

Betty closed Jughead’s messages. Whatever was happening tomorrow, she didn’t need to know.

Jughead made a triumphant sound and brought her back into the closet, now shin deep in outerwear and various storage items. He held up two umbrellas, one in each hand and tossed one of them to Betty, which she caught clumsily. With the other, he walked over to the door, and drove the umbrella right into the wood, in the space between its handle and the frame.

The splintering noise made Betty jump. “Seriously Jughead,” she cried.  “What do you think you’re doing?”

“Getting you home to Polly,” he said and stretched out his hand to Betty for the second umbrella. She hesitantly handed it over and he turned and drove it into the door again, right next to the first one. They both stuck out at an angle in the wood, sitting where Betty imaged the lock to the door was.

Jughead grabbed both umbrellas and started pushing them against the wood, effectively using them as a wedge to pressure the lock forward out of the doorframe. Betty shook her head. Only mathlete Jughead Jones would think to use an umbrella as a crowbar.

The wood of the door started creaking the further Jughead pushed. Betty hopped behind him in an effort to help, but then the umbrellas started bending under the force and Jughead’s hands lost their purchase. He stumbled into the wall and his knuckles made a loud _thwump_ at the impact. The bent umbrellas fell to the floor on a pile of all the other useless things, leaving the door cracked and splintered a little, but still defiantly locked.  

Jughead kicked the door in frustration and sucked on his scraped knuckles, then turned to the mess around him in the closet and kicked some of those things too.

Betty leaned her back against the door. So that was it. They were going to get out of this closet if they had to destroy this door to do it. All because of what? Because their history made Jughead afraid to push it, and her feelings made Betty afraid to go for it.

She looked at Jughead’s phone in her hand again, at the picture of her and her two friends, happy and unaware of the strange night they would have just a few months later.  There had been so many reasons for her to defy Cheryl’s rules just a few hours ago, and now Betty wasn’t so sure exactly what those reasons were anymore.

_I think you’ll be pretty happy tomorrow._

So what if her friends were having a secret rendezvous tomorrow? Would this meaningless closet game really make a difference? If her friends woke up one day and realized they wanted all the things everyone had always expected for them, did she love them enough to be happy for them?  

Jughead stood in the middle of the closet, reanalyzing the junk at his feet. He was willing to break this door down for her, what was she willing to do for him?

Betty gripped the phone in one hand and reached out to Jughead with the other, pulling his scraped knuckles down from his mouth and then cupping his face. Her friend, who she loved, regardless of what definition of love he reciprocated. _Love,_  she thought, and let it be sorted right into the center of everything. She felt it blossom in her chest and fall like a misty rain down to her fingertips and settle in her toes.

Jughead looked at her like he was looking through fog, his eyes searching hers and his chest rising and falling with slow steady breaths.

Betty moved in closer to him and softly pressed her lips against his. She felt frozen in time, in a moment she both wanted to hold onto forever and knew would fly from her fingertips and escape her in a breath.

To her surprise, he pressed into the kiss against her mouth. It startled her and she stepped back sooner than she’d wanted to, her lips still electrified by their touch.

She looked at the phone. She’d almost missed it, but there the picture was, a little blurry, but the clear lip-on-lip proof that had been required of them. Betty quickly messaged it to Cheryl and clicked send before she lost her nerve.

“Betty?” Jughead said, so quietly she thought she’d dreamed it.

She slowly lowered his phone, afraid to look up at him, afraid of what she might see. “Jug?” she replied.

“I don’t…” he paused. “I don’t see you like that.”

Betty's head was still spinning from their kiss. “Like what?” she asked breathlessly.

She knew what he was supposed to say next. I don’t see you like someone to kiss. I don’t see you as more than a friend. I don’t see us ever doing that again.

But Jughead seemed to be struggling to find the right words. 

“What you said earlier, about me seeing you like Veronica sees me.” He looked her over, his eyes pleading and his jaw tight again. He took a deep breath before finishing the thought: “I don’t.”

Betty didn’t say anything. Her mind raced to understand what he could possibly mean by that.

_I think you’ll be pretty happy tomorrow._

What if… what if she had read that wrong? What if she’d been reading everything about tonight wrong?

Betty couldn’t move and she couldn’t breath. There were too many things flooding into her and she couldn’t sort through any of it. If Jughead was saying he could see her as more than just a friend... She felt the words hanging like a weight on the end of her open mouth. _Me too_ she thought. _Two words. Say it, Betty. Say it._

Then there was a loud ruckus outside the closet.

The door behind Betty swung open.  

“You freaks,” Cheryl screeched. “What are you still doing in my house?”

Betty spun around and saw Cheryl dressed down in her pajamas, her eyes widening as she looked around. “What did you do to our closet?” Her fingers traced the split wood in the door frame and an amused, mischievous grin spread across her face. 

Betty turned back to Jughead, desperate to save their moment, desperate to say the right thing before it was too late. But his face had already clouded over. She’d waited too long and her indecisive silence had settled like rejection onto the moment. Betty shook her head, trying to take it back, but Jughead shifted his gaze to beyond the doorway, and shoved past both girls on his way out.

“Jug!” Betty cried after him, her voice small. Her insides felt hollow and like she was crumbling into herself. Somehow she had gotten everything she’d wanted and then utterly ruined it in one quick moment. She watched him turn the corner of the Blossom’s basement lounge and disappeared down the hall. It felt like a knife turning in her gut.

Cheryl gave Betty a nudge then leaned against the door frame. “Well, what are you waiting for, Cooper? Run after him.”

Her words helped snap Betty out of it. The night wasn’t over yet.

Betty burst from the closet and sprinted after Jughead.


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I realized in this chapter that I had to characterize Archie as a reformed party girl, which is now my new favorite thing.

Their night had started off simple enough. Jughead came by to pick up Betty before the homecoming dance, and they had planned on swinging by for Veronica too, but she’d decided at the last minute to have Archie drive her.

Jughead had gone all out in a black suit and a dark blue tie, even though it was just homecoming and the only kids who really got into it were the freshman. But this was part of the crusade to make senior year amazing, and besides, Jughead always looked perfectly put together.

Betty ran out to his car in her worn sneakers with a backpack slung around her shoulder and her hair slightly damp from the last minute shower she’d been able to squeeze in. Dropping Polly off at her friend’s had taken longer than expected - Polly kept packing then unpacking then repacking her things, anxious about bringing over too much then not enough. Betty had barely enough time to get her legs shaved before Jughead showed up at her door.

Betty pulled open the passenger’s door and tossed her stuff in then ran back to her trailer when Jughead reminded her to grab a jacket. She fell into the passenger’s seat breathless from her sprint and pulled down the visor to fix her hair. It was not great. Her blonde, wavy hair hung limp around her shoulders, just like it did every other day. Veronica was going to have a thing or two to say about it.  

She sighed. Nothing she could do about it now.

Jughead was watching her from the corner of his eye as he drove. “I don’t usually see you without your beanie on,” he remarked.

Betty pulled a brush through her hair. Maybe that would help. “Yeah, well, Veronica insisted it was not proper dance attire.”

“You look nice,” he said.

Betty laughed. She knew she did not look that nice, not compared to the dolled up versions of Veronica, Cheryl, and Josie that would be running around tonight. She had tried on dozens of Veronica’s expensive, shapely dresses, but the proportion and fit had all been off. Not enough on top or on bottom. So instead she had worn an old dress her mom had left behind. Nothing fancy. Navy with a bit of lace and a material so worn, it felt more like t-shirt than anything else, but at least it was a color she liked. It dipped low in the front, revealing the space between her small breasts that she was endlessly self-conscious about. She ran her fingers down her neckline in an attempt to hide the area.

“I’m serious,” Jughead said with a hint of a smile on the edge of his mouth.

Betty could feel warmth flooding her cheeks. “Thanks,” she said in a small voice. She looked him over and tried not to stare. “You don’t look too bad yourself.”

He smiled. “We’re kind of matching,” he said, pointing to his tie. Betty looked between them. They were a very similar shade of blue. “Are you going to wear your sneakers all night? Because that’s awesome.”

“Ugh, I wish.” She opened her bag and pulled out fancy pumps from Veronica. “But I’ve been condemned to these monstrosities.”

Jughead whistled. Betty rolled her eyes and stuffed them back into her backpack.

“Is there going to be food at this thing?” Betty asked, feeling a rumble in her empty stomach.

“No,” Jughead laughed. “Why, you hungry?”

“Starved,” she said, rubbing some lipgloss on her lips. “Think we have time to swing by Pop’s?”

“Not even Pop is that fast. We could go through the drive-thru at Tacos Locos?”

Betty scrunched her nose. She always spilled on herself when she ate Tacos Locos. They specialized in overflowing tacos. Veronica might forgive her for the plain-jane hair, but she would not be so understanding if Betty showed up covered with chorizo and hot sauce.

“What’s going to be my next chance?” she asked, her empty stomach nudging her again.

“Probably not until I drive you home. Which will be late. Ronnie is insisting we make an appearance at an afterparty.”

Betty closed the visor and slumped back in her seat.“Ugh, two social things? I don’t remember that being part of the agreement.”

“Yeah,” Jughead said, one hand on the wheel, one hand rubbing the back of his neck. “I think Ronnie wanted to wait to tell you. It’s at the Blossoms. By the request of the twins themselves via their third twin, Archie Andrews. She insists we go so that Mr. Andrews feels more accepted into our little group.”

Betty groaned. “I would have an easier time accepting him if all of his ideas weren’t out of the dull party boy’s handbook.” So far their Archie-centered hangouts had included a kegger they’d had to drive forty minutes out of town for and a strange trip to the mall to watch him shop for turtleneck sweaters.

“Yeah I know.” Jughead had only been moderately tolerant of Veronica’s new boyfriend. So far the new kid had managed to stick around longer than most typical Lodge relationships.

Betty put her feet on the dash and sunk low in her seat. “Can’t Veronica just take him back to her place to make out with him? Do we really need to go to Thornhill just so she can test the waters?”

Jughead hesitated before offering, “We don’t have to go Betty, not if you don’t want to.” She knew he was thinking back to the last time they’d been at Thornhill. It’d been years and still they’d never really talked about that night.

“No it’s ok, Jughead,” she said, waving his concern away. “That was five years ago, we were kids. We’ll play along for Veronica, but that means I need you to turn left up here.” She pointed at the light up ahead.

“For what?” he asked, making the abrupt turn.

“I’m getting me some tacos.”

That all felt like a lifetime ago.  

Now they sat in uneasy silence. Jughead had lost his suit jacket and tie and had the top buttons of his shirt undone. He kept running his hair through his frazzled hair, making it stand on end. Betty sat pin straight next to him, not sure how to navigate this new space between them.

She'd raced out of Thornhill and found Jughead sitting in his car, the engine already on. It took all of her nerve to slide into the passenger's seat. He hit the gas before she could put her seatbelt on.

“Thank you for still driving me home,” she said softly, attempting to venture into conversation.

Jughead looked pained at her words. “C'mon Betty, I wasn't going to just leave you there. I’m not a dick.”

Betty toyed with the fraying lace on her skirt and watched Jughead carefully. She examined the groves of his face, wanting to know every detail, looking for what she might've missed before. It was hard to make out in the darkness of the car, and she could only catch a glimpse here and there when they passed under a streetlamp.

She knew he could feel her staring at him. She knew because he kept his gaze deliberately straight ahead of them on the road, just like he had all those years ago when he’d stubbornly walked her home in the mist and the fog.

“Juggie, what you said back there...”

Jughead gripped the wheel tighter. “We don't need to talk about it Betty, it's fine.”

 _No more running Betty,_ she reminded herself. “No,” she said, her voice bold in the small car. “I want to talk about it.”

Jughead shifted in his seat. “Fine.”

“It just…surprised me.”

Had it really? Or was she just blinded by something, something that was in her, something too afraid to let her imagine what could be. Something too afraid to let her notice things between them.

Like how he’d smirked at her as she wobbled in Veronica’s high heels.

“Hey,” he’d said, offering her his arm, the twinkling lights of the dance behind him. “It’s not all bad, right?”

Or how he’d leaned in close when she’d asked if she had taco breath.

“Yes,” he’d said with an amused smile. “Smells like beans,” and he'd lingered there a bit too long before she’d jokingly shoved him away

Or how he’d joined her in the back of the school for a smoke halfway through the dance.

“How can something so disgusting,” he’d said, taking the cigarette from her hand to give it a try. “Look so damn cool.”

And how he’d defended her at Thornhill.

And how he’d brushed her chin with his fingertips.

And how he'd held her when they’d danced.

Maybe Cheryl’s trap hadn’t been meant for her at all.

“That's fair,” he said, bringing her back to the car. “I did kind of spring it on you.”

“It’s not just that,” she said, suddenly feeling overwhelmed by everything again. “That was kind of sweet. I mean, the whole thing is a bit of a shock.”

Jughead glanced at her as he turned a corner. The bright orange glow from the corner store lit up the car then plunged them back into darkness.  “What do you mean?”

“C’mon Jughead,” she said. Did he really not notice? “You’re student body president! You run triathlons, for god’s sake. You’re going to be valedictorian when we graduate. You like, mow old people’s lawns and refuse to take money for it and then sit on their porch and drink lemonade with them.”

Jughead frowned. “That only happened once, Betty.”

“You’re this perfect boy next door. And look at me!” She waved her hands over her disheveled, second-hand self for emphasis. “We’re a completely different species.”

Jughead’s jaw was tight again. She could see his mind racing.

Betty slid back into her seat. “I just never thought someone like you would even consider someone like me.”

“That’s crazy, Betty,” he said, shaking his head. “What does that even mean?”

Betty gave him a long pointed look. “C’mon Jug, if we hadn’t grown up together, there’s no way we would even be friends.”

He laughed, looking rapidly between her and the road, her and the road again. “Are you joking?”

Betty shrugged.

“Betty, if we weren’t friends who would I talk to about every true crime podcast and netflix series?”

She shrugged again. “It’s a blossoming genre, plenty of people-”

“Who else is going to stand in line with me for hours for the new DC comic releases?”

“It’s not my fault you don’t trust amazon pre-orders.”

“Who else is going to destroy me in smash bros?”

“That is pretty embarrassing. You put in so many hours of that game, I really shouldn’t be able to beat you so easily.”

“Who else is going to dissect the merits of noir film with me?”

Betty crossed her arms. “Ok, now you’re just naming things I like.”

Jughead threw his free hand up in the air. “Betty, those are all things _I_ like too. That’s why we’re friends.”

A silence settled between them. They were pulling into Betty’s neighborhood, driving down her street. Their car ride was rapidly coming to an end. She could feel her opportunity slipping away from her again.

“And more than friends?” she asked, her heart racing. “Where did that come from? You really think there’s a chance we could…”

Jughead brought the car to a stop in front of Betty’s trailer and threw it into park. He fully turned in his seat to look at her.

“Ok,” he said with a sigh. “So I haven’t been entirely honest with you.”


	8. Chapter 8

Jughead picked at the back of his hand, at where he had scraped the skin on his knuckles earlier that night, while Betty watched and waited for him to collect his thoughts.

“What I said earlier, with Veronica,” Jughead said. “That’s not really what happened.”

Betty leaned her head against her seat’s headrest. They were both turned to face each other, the expanse of the car stretched out between them.

“I’d actually told Ronnie how I felt way back when we were sophomores if you can believe it, after we’d been crowned king and queen at homecoming.” Jughead leaned his head against his seat too and gazed up at Betty.  

“We came up with this pact that we would date our senior year. I was somehow convinced that was a good idea. It sounds so stupid saying it outloud now,” he said with a shrug. “I should’ve known what it was, because I refused to tell you about it and I swore Ronnie to secrecy. I told her I didn’t want to make you feel excluded, but I really just didn’t want you telling me the truth. And I knew you’d tell me the truth.”

“I liked her - or thought I did - for two more years while she dated around,” he said, his jaw going tight with a flash of hurt. But then it passed and he shook his head. “But, I can’t fault her for that. I’d agreed to it. That was kind of the point of the senior year pact.”

“So then this summer rolls around,” Jughead continued. “And we gave it a try. And it was such a disaster, Betty. Everything just felt… off. We kept pissing each other off over nothing…” he trailed off, his brow furrowing as he thought about it. Betty wanted to ask for more details, anxious to know more about this hidden chapter of her friends lives, but instead she waited for him to go on. It felt important to let him talk.

After a moment he asked, “Remember that day at the park, when we watched JB’s practice?"

Betty thought about the picture on Jughead’s phone. She nodded.

“Veronica invited you to prove a point and she was right,” he said with a small smile. “That was the first time I’d had fun like, all summer. We talked about it later and Ronnie pointed out that maybe she wasn’t the dream girl I’d made her out to be. That maybe I needed... someone else.”

His eyes had flickered to her as he said those last words. Betty felt something blossom in her chest that she didn’t quite have the word for. Something soft and full and powerful at the same time. She bit her lip to keep her smile from overtaking her face.

“If I’m honest,” Jughead went on. “I should’ve known since I walked you home that night when we were in junior high. After that goddamn game. You telling me I should’ve been different, and running off into the night like you did. It… changed something in me.”

Betty remembered how she felt after they’d made it home to her trailer, when everyone was busy and happy with relief and running around. She remembered how Jughead had sat there, quietly, and how she had felt different, but she didn’t know how yet. A trust had grown between them after that day, an understanding that Betty would sometimes be a mess and Jughead would sometimes make mistakes, but that they would still manage to emerge from the fog and the rain together. They’d kept building on that trust for five more years without either of them looking closely at what it really was.

Betty sighed. “Why didn’t you say anything?” she said with a small unbelieving shake of her head. She had liked Jughead for so long, she couldn’t believe she hadn’t noticed when he started liking her back.

“I was…” he hesitated, searching for the right word.

“Scared?” she offered.

He nodded, another sad smile on the corner of his mouth.  “Veronica couldn’t even tell me if you’d ever liked anyone, and it’s not like you ever hide your opinions about anything. I thought if I said something and you didn’t feel the same way, I would ruin everything. You’re so passionate about so many important, awesome things. And you never let anyone tell you what to do. I assumed that if you were ever interested, or could be interested, that I would just...” He waved his hands around vaguely, as if he could pull the right words from the air.  “That I would just know.”

Betty thought for a second before responding. Jughead cringed at her hesitation.

“Things are easy to care about,” she said, finally. “Things can be right or wrong, for the most part, if you look at them close enough. Things don’t have an opinion about you. They don’t change their mind about you. They don’t…” She trailed off.

 _They don’t leave_ , she thought. _Things don’t leave._

Betty hesitated at the thought. Normally that would be something that would run through her mind and she’d decide not to say. But there had already been too much of that between them.  

She cleared her throat and forced it out. “Things don’t leave.”

With her words, she could feel some of that fear that was always lurking underneath everything she said and did cleave away from her. It wasn't entirely gone, but it was good to put words to it. It was good to have it forced outside of her for someone else to see. It seemed less threatening out in the open.

“People are harder,” she said, finishing her thought.

Jughead nodded. “That makes sense,” he said in a quiet voice. And he said it in a way that she could tell he was trying to make better sense of her, that he wanted to understand better.

“So,” he said with another sigh. “I told Veronica how I was feeling and she agreed to be my wingman.”

Betty laughed in surprise. “Why?” she asked, bewildered. “Veronica would make a terrible wingman.”

“She _did_ make a terrible wingman,” he exclaimed. “First she got her own date, when she wasn’t supposed to, then dragged us to Thornhill, which was the absolute last place I wanted to take you, and then she left us there. She actually told me she thought it’d be good for us to just kiss it out in that closet.”

Betty laughed. That did sound like their friend. Veronica had very little patience for that kind of thing. She would literally go insane if she had to wait a month or two to make a move.

“And then we got thrown into that closet and I just kept making things worse,” Jughead ran his hands down his face. “I could physically feel myself ruining things all over again.”

Betty’s eyebrows shot up. “Ruining things?” she asked.  “You keep saying that but I've never once thought that about you, Jug. That's your mom talking.”

He shrugged off her comment. Jughead’s mom was something, like Betty with her own home life, that he didn’t like dwelling on for too long.

“All that stuff I said about Cheryl scheming,” he went on, “It wasn’t about you. It was about me. She’s been teasing me since we ran out of her party in junior high that I was secretly in love with you. As soon as she got wind that something might be happening between us, she was all too delighted to try to push my buttons.” He shook his head. “And I let her.”

Betty shook her head too. There had been so much going on, and she had been so wrapped up in her own fears and anxieties that she hadn’t even noticed.

“I’m sorry I keep messing up this dumb spin the bottle game,” Jughead said after some time.

“First seventh grade and now this,” Betty joked.

He smiled but it quickly faded. “I always thought that when I did kiss you… if I ever kissed you, it wouldn’t be for a game. And now I’ve ruined it twice.”

“Jughead…” she said with a dreamy sigh. She felt so full and so overwhelmed, that she didn’t know what to do or say. It felt fragile, like one wrong move would scare it off. She pulled her hair behind her ear and ran her fingers down her neck, along the neckline of her dress. The sensation soothed her nerves. She watched as Jughead’s eyes followed her fingertips. Then he abruptly looked away.

“It’s fine, Betty,” he said, turning in his seat so he faced forward again. “I promise, it doesn’t change anything.”

A few hours ago, those words might’ve shut her down. She might’ve felt like Jughead had come to his senses and was changing his mind about her after all. But now that she had put words to her fears, she could see it more clearly in Jughead, how he was just as afraid of her rejecting him as she had always been of him rejecting her. _No more running away,_ she reminded herself again.

Betty took a deep breath. She reached over and twisted the key in the ignition and turned the car off. Jughead looked up at her, a question behind his eyes.

“Will you walk me to my door?” she asked.

Jughead nodded and slid out of the car. They wordlessly walked up the steps to her trailer.

Betty unlocked her door then turned to look at Jughead. The night was at it’s darkest now, and the air was crisp and clear so you could see the whole sky bursting with stars. Her eyes had adjusted to the darkness while she’d listened to Jughead in the car, so she could see him clearly as leaned against the frail wood awning that covered their small porch. He had his eyes to the ground and his hands shoved deep in his pockets.

Betty took another deep breath, calling on everything within her to be brave. She stepped closer to him and took his arm, pulling his hand out of his pocket and grasping it with her own. It was the hand with the busted up knuckles and she traced each scrape with a finger.

“You don’t ruin things,” she said, her voice sounding like the only thing in the world in the early morning quiet around them. “I couldn’t have survived those things without you, not in junior high or through high school. I couldn’t have survived...” she said softly and then pressed her lips to the back of his hand. She felt Jughead suck in a breath. “Without your goodness...” she said, kissing one of his scraped knuckles. “And kindness…” she said and kissed another. “And dance moves…” she smiled and kissed. “And sweetness...” She kissed each small wound and then ran her fingertips over them again. Then she looked back up into his eyes and found him beaming. He took his other hand from his pocket and wrapped it around her waist.

Betty smiled at his touch and tried to focus on getting the rest of her words out. “That’s why I’ve always been so crazy into you for… forever. Just so insanely, utterly into you.” Jughead pressed his forehead to her forehead and pulled her in closer to him.

“You’re joking,” he said, unable to contain his smile.

“Jug,” she said, running her hands up his neck and cupping his face. He stepped forward and pressed her against the door and her heart thrilled at this new touch. “We’ve just spent the longest night of my life confessing our feelings for each other. Will you finally give me a proper kiss?”

She had barely finished the word before Jughead’s lips rushed in to meet hers. Their kiss earlier had been hesitant and timid, but there was nothing timid about this one. Their lips parted and moved in steady growing rhythm, each of them growing more breathless as their kisses stretched out longer and longer. The sensation of his tongue in her mouth sent a wave of goosebumps across her body. The feel of her tongue in his made her feel bold and powerful in a way she’d never felt before. She ventured her fingertips down to his neck and slipped them under the neckline of his shirt. She could feel the hum of his rapid heartbeat. She felt her own heart swell even more at the thought that that was from her. Her kiss. Her touch. She pulled away and let go of a long breath from deep inside of her.

Betty couldn’t help it: she covered her mouth to hide the coy smile taking over her face.

“Well,” Jughead said, touching his nose to hers in a gentle nudge then moving his mouth to the side of her face and leaving a small kiss below her ear. “Betty Cooper…” he moved his mouth to the other side and kissed below her other ear. “That’s…” he said as he began trailing kisses down the side of her neck.

“It’s…” she said, but had to pause to let air back into her lungs. “A positive step in the repopulation of Closet Town,” she finally said with a small, breathless laugh.

She could feel Jughead smile as he pressed his lips to her neck again.  “We’ve migrated from Closet Town,” he said, his words on her skin sending a prickle across her body. “We’re never going back to there.”

“The motherland?” she joked again. She leaned her head against the door behind her, her chest rising and falling in unsteady breaths.

Jughead raised his head to look at her. “That hellhole,” he said firmly, but with such a joyful smile that Betty had to give him another long, wonderful kiss.

Then Jughead surprised her by lifting her into the air. She cupped his face again in her hands and had to pause for a moment to take it all in. He looked up at her in the starlight, his eyes gleaming, his mouth caught somewhere between something so happy and so unbelieving at the same time. Somehow this night had ended with Jughead in her arms just as crazy about her as she’d always been for him. He leaned up and nudged her nose again, and she pressed her forehead to his.

“Jughead Jones,” she whispered. “Will you carry me home?”

He smiled and nodded and opened the door behind her and brought them inside.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The positive response to this little fic has really been overwhelming. This is the first thing I've been brave enough to post online, so it has a really special place in my heart. I wish I could quit my job and write every day for you guys. This is much more fun.


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